


All I Want For Christmas Is For You To Leave Me Alone

by Maya_Koppori



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Christmas, Gen, dave is a drama queen, implied davejade, minor teen angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 17:41:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5595085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maya_Koppori/pseuds/Maya_Koppori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jade was so excited to have everyone together for Christmas, but Dave has gone mysteriously missing. He could be hiding out for ironic purposes, but what if he isn't?</p>
            </blockquote>





	All I Want For Christmas Is For You To Leave Me Alone

**Author's Note:**

> this was for the homestuck secret Santa exchange, and I can't emphasize how sorry i am for its lateness... Merry Christmas thesupremequeen!!

* * *

 

 

Jade might have grown up with no adult supervision, an omniscient canine for a guardian, and approximately four and a half friends, but she wasn't so socially dense that she didn't know when she was being avoided.

The house was big, but not so big that she wouldn't run into John and the others at least a few times each day. And with the current festivities, everyone was coming together even more than usual. John, Jake, Jane, and Roxy had taken it upon themselves to help her decorate each and every available surface in her house, and even some of the ruins. Christmas music blared through the speakers of countless computers and speakers, adding a tumultuous din to the normally quiet manor.

“A bit to the left!” Roxy was calling out now. She was directing Jane and the boys from the foot of the stairs as they hung the various decorations, and had to tell to be heard above the music.

“There _is_ no more left!” John laughed. He was leaning over the banister with Jane and Jake holding his legs, arms reaching for a spot he couldn't quite get to.

“Well to be honest there is, but I don't think Johnny boy here is quite that stretchy, Rox.”

Roxy clicked her tongue. “Don't interfere with my vision, Jakey. We have to follow my vision. To the left!”

Jade chuckled and detached herself from the wall she'd taken residence on. “Don't break any legs today, guys. I don't think Santa gives out instantaneous bone repair for Christmas.”

It took some more prodding, but Roxy finally allowed that her vision could be a little more flexible for the sake of John’s safety. “Ok, that's good! Hold it steady!” Roxy mounted her rifle on her shoulder and took aim. A volley of nails shot from her modified tool and tacked the string of snowflakes to the wall. “Success!”

“Yeah, it's really great!” Jade cheered. She slung an arm around Roxy’s shoulders and admired their work. “Hey,” she murmured, close to Roxy’s ear and far enough away that the others couldn't hear. “Did you ever find Dave?”

“Nope. Did you check with Dirk?”

“No offense, but he's kind of the last person I'd ask.”

“Touché.”

Jade huffed and turned on her heel, thinking. She'd checked the house, she'd checked the terrace, she'd checked the gardens- she'd even checked the beaches as well as she could from her bedroom window. No one had seen or heard so much as a peep from Dave in two days and it was Christmas Eve. Something was up, and Jade was starting to worry.

“Thanks anyway, Roxy. I'll keep looking.”

“Hey, Jade!” John called. He was still hanging from the banister, a doofy grin on his face. “If you see Dave, tell him he’d better show his face at dinner if he doesn't want to get a dead crow for Christmas!”

Jane pulled a face and gave John a chastising look. “Tell me you didn't go kill a crow just to make a joke about his sprite in the game? That's awful!”

“Not just that! Don't you know about Dave’s weird obsession with dead stuff?” As John started rambling about your days as internet pals, his words struck a chord somewhere within you.

_Dave. Dead stuff. Dave liked dead stuff. Ruins. Ruins had dead stuff._

Jade sprinted from the house, shouldering her own rifle as she went. She ignored the sounds of surprise and concern that followed her and burst onto the front lawn. The evening air caressed her face as she ran, her wild hair trailing behind her like a dark comet. Judging from the position of the sun, she had about half an hour to find Dave if she wanted to make it back to the house before nightfall. So she hopped across the giant lily pads and prayed that he would be easy to find.

She shouldn't have worried about that, Jade thought as she heard the first metallic _ping_. Dave was anything but subtle, and he was a bit of a drama queen. He wouldn't have made it impossible to find him unless he didn't want to be found.

The ancient steps shifted nervously under her feet, but Jade made it into the temple with no problem. She climbed still higher, following that short, repetitive clang to the top. Dave sat against one wall, huddled against the wall in the square of light coming from the window. Candy wrappers and other food trash littered the floor around him, evidence that he hadn't moved in a while. He didn't even look up when she entered, but continued flipping a scratched coin. It flew through the air and plummeted over and over again, but each time Dave’s nimble fingers caught it inches above the stone floor.

After a few more tosses, Dave clenched his fist around the coin and sighed. “You gonna stand there all night or what, Harley?”

“Wow, rude. Are you gonna be a weirdo about whatever's been bugging you until you've missed Christmas?” Jade crossed to Dave’s corner and sat down a respectable distance away. The cool stone helped ground her for what she knew was coming.

Dave faced her with a deadpan expression, his dumb ironic shades obscuring his eyes and making Jade guess at where he was looking at any given time. “Dunno what you're referring to. How am I being weird?”

“Dave, you just disappeared without a word. We were all worried about you. You know how dangerous this island can get at night.” She patted her gun for emphasis.

“I've faced worse.”

“Look, I know we did some crazy stuff in SBURB, but that doesn't mean-”

“Not in the game,” Dave cut her off. He pulled his knees up to his chest and squeezed. “I meant back home.”

“... Oh.” Jade didn't know what else to say. Dave had never really opened up much to her about his home life. Davesprite had a little, but she had no idea if Dave knew how much she knew, or if he was okay with that. She knew enough to understand why he was simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by Dirk. She knew enough to _guess_ why he had flown off the minute they introduced loud, clanging music to the house. What she didn't know was how to handle this.

“Yeah,” Dave answered, his voice muffled against his black jeans. “So you don't have to worry. I'll be fine, just… Just give me some time to get used to it.”

“Dave, we all had to get used to it,” Jade said gently. “Jake and I didn’t really have anyone around… Dirk and Roxy were the only two people on Earth at some point, for crying out loud! We can help each other get used to being around actual people, but that only works when we stick together.”

“I can't!” Dave snapped. “I can't, okay? The noise, the people, I just can't. This isn't how we did it in Houston. This isn't how Bro-” He broke off, a lump in his throat.

“And I get that,” Jade insisted. “But this isn't Houston, and your Bro isn't here. You know who’s here?” She tentatively put a hand on Dave’s knee. He flinched, but didn't pull away. “John is here. Rose is here. Roxy and the others want to get to know you better. And I'm here too. You don't have to be scared of Christmas, Dave. We all love you.”

Breathing evenly wasn't something Dave usually had a problem with. Not since he was a puny little asthmatic kid running across asphalt rooftops in the muggy Texas heat. But Jade could feel his shudders through her light touch. Dave still wouldn't look at her, though. He stared straight ahead, jaw clenched so tight it clicked. “That’s all well and good, Jade, but there are some things that just don’t change. I don’t care whose feelings get hurt, I’m not going back.”

Sighing, Jade withdrew her hand. “Alright.”

"...What?" Dave didn't seem to have expected her to give up so quickly.

"I said alright," Jade repeated slowly. She looked at him askance. "Jeez, Dave. I'm not going to drag you back by the ankles. If you're that uncomfortable, it's not my place to tell you to come back, much as I want to." She pushed up from the wall and, without looking, pulled a single box from her sylladex. “I’ll just have to give you your present now.”

Dave’s head snapped up at that. His shades locked on the small green box in her hands. It had a poofy red ribbon on the top, and Jade guessed that was the reason the corners of Dave’s mouth twitched upwards. “What’s that on top? Some kind of freaky rodent?”

Jade flipped him off and handed him the box before walking toward the stairs, waving over her shoulder. “My aesthetic is lost on you as usual, I see. I’ll leave you some dinner in the Cookalizer if you decide to come in late.”

She got halfway down to the bottom floor of the temple before a shadow blurred past her and blocked her way. Rolling her eyes, Jade fixed Dave with a knowing smile. “Change your mind?”

Dave frowned at her, and even with the shades Jade could tell he was trying to convey that he was still nervous. He glanced guiltily at the unwrapped present he held. It hadn’t been easy for Jade to find, but after enough scrounging in the attic she had finally remembered where her grandpa had kept his old camera. It was an old polaroid instant camera from the seventies, the kind that spit out a picture right after you took it, and at some point it might have been white. It had an old but sturdy black neck strap.

“No. I just need to find Dirk,” he said softly. He looked up at her again, forced by their new height difference on the stairs. “He used to make robots’n shit right? How hard can it be to fix up a rickety ol’ grandpa camera that’s been on a shelf since the dawn a time?”

Jade’s face split into a grin. Dave’s Texan was showing. When Davesprite had done that, it had been because he was lying. And he had hated to be called out on it. “Ain’t no thang,” she mocked, squealing when he lunged forward and put her in a headlock. His knuckles ground into her scalp as she was noogied mercilessly. “Sorry, sorry! Let me go!”

“No more makin’ fun of the accent?” Dave hooked the camera around his neck by the strap with one hand and switched from noogies to tickles. “That’s a hurtful cultural stereotype, y’know.”

Jade chortled with laughter, shoving Dave off of her. “Fine, fine, no more. I’ll help you find Dirk, he’s probably in the den with Rose.” But as she moved to step around Dave, he caught her around the waist and pulled her to his side.

“Thanks, Jade,” he whispered into the one-sided hug. Jade’s breath hitched at the emotion in his voice. “I know I can be dumb and hard to deal with-”

“Uh-huh.”

“Shut up, I’m having a Moment ™ and you’re ruining it. Anyway, it means a lot that you try to deal with me anyway. So. Thanks.”

“No one I’d rather deal with, Dave.” Jade bonked his forehead with hers before continuing down the stairs. “Come on, John may or may not have some cool dead stuff for you after dinner.”

“Effin’ incredible.”


End file.
